


Honing and Stroping

by imaginarycircus



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-12
Updated: 2011-06-12
Packaged: 2017-10-20 08:59:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/211024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginarycircus/pseuds/imaginarycircus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Danny shave each other with a straight razor. written for the promptmeme <a href='http://h50promptmeme.livejournal.com/1160.html?thread=30600#t30600"'>here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honing and Stroping

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tailoredshirt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tailoredshirt/gifts).



The rasp of the razor against Steve's slick warm wet skin is mesmerizing and puts Danny into a semi-trance, which is dangerous, because he's the one wielding the lethal little blade so close to Steve's jugular.

*snick*

A tiny trickle of blood. Just a capillary bleed. Easily blotted away.

"Keep going," Steve says, waving his plaster encased arm in a revolving motion.

For once Danny says nothing, because talking makes his hands flail and he must not flail, or gesticulate while he is holding death so casually close to Steve. Danny scrapes slowly along Steve's jaw, watching the metal, warm in his hand, drag through the foam and leave behind a trail of pink skin, hairless. He takes extra care and shaves slowly beneath Steve's nose and in the rivulet of his philtrum. Danny imagines slicing off Steve's lips by accident and doesn't even breathe much.

He cleans the dull metal and dries it and folds it closed and only then permits his hands to tremble, like spiders on a hot griddle.

"Why can't you shave like a normal person, you Luddite. They make electric razors now. Or safety razors, even. What the hell is wrong with you?"

Steve takes Danny's hand and trails Danny's fingers along his jaw, where not a single finger catches, or snags. The skin is smooth as butter.

"Let me do you," Steve says.

Danny does a double take and his face flushes.

"Let me shave you," Steve says and smirks. Danny's face relaxes into a smile, this game--he knows how to play.

"I don't think so. Why would I let you shave me with that instrument of torture? On what planet would that happen?"

Steve just smiles and flicks the razor open and swipes its hungry edge along the strop with expert flashes of his wrist. When it's sharp enough, he pushes Danny down, so he's sitting on the closed lid of the toilet. Danny has never wanted to die like Elvis less in his life. Steve wraps a hot towel around Danny's face and it would be kind of nice, like a face sauna, if living in Hawaii wasn't already kind of like living in sauna.

Danny thinks about his breath cumulonimbusing from his mouth on frigid mornings, thinks about floors too cold to walk on barefoot, remembers snow and sleet as if they're something he dreamed of once.

Steve whips the towel off Danny's face and applies a thick layer of foam with an old boar bristle shaving brush that probably belonged to every McGarrett ever.

"Wait, why am I letting the one armed man, shave me again?"Danny says.

"Do you trust me?" Steve looks perfectly steady.

"Not even a little bit, babe." But Danny tilts his head up and let's Steve sweep the razor through the shaving foam, dragging away bits of gold and black with it. Steve is able to hold Danny's chin with his injured left hand and work the blade with his right hand. His movements are deft, even graceful. He doesn't nick or cut Danny. There is no blood and it is the smoothest shave Danny has had in years. His skin feels oddly naked and exposed. Steve blots away the dregs of soap with the warm towel and runs his thumb over Danny's jaw.

"Let me try something," Steve says and leans down and rubs his cheek against Danny's as if he's a cat and he's scent marking Danny as his own possession.

Danny's brain has disconnected from his mouth, and that's never happened before. If he could speak he might say, "Steve, what are you doing?" He should say, "Hey, buddy? We don't do this." He wants to say, "Don't stop."

And Steve doesn't stop. He runs the apple of his cheek patiently, slowly, sweetly across Danny's jaw and brow, glides across his ear and drifts down to his throat, where Steve lodges his face into the crook of Danny's neck and breathes deeply.

Danny read Grace a story once about a boy who could swallow the entire ocean and he feels like that's what Steve is doing--inhaling an ocean of Danny Williams. He understands.

"I'm not going anywhere," he says.

Steve pulls back and shakes his head. He looks off to the side, which he does when he can't look at something head on, because pain is blinding.

"You just never know when the knock on the door is going to come," he says. He swallows hard and Danny's throat tightens in sympathy, or maybe empathy, or maybe both. He forgets the difference between the two and it's a blurry line for him anyway.

He thinks of his mother in Jersey who is probably cleaning something while listening to two televisions at once, the noise a constant reassuring blare of life. She's always been there for him, an anchor keeping him from drifting out into open water.

Steve's house is always silent. It's populated by soundless ghosts, the dead stacked two deep in every corner, but well dusted. Danny imagines Steve cleans at night when he can't find the curling edges of sleep to draw over himself like a sheet.

Danny opens his arms as wide as wide and let's Steve back in, let's him breathe in all the Danny he wants, and doesn't ask why, or what, or what next? Because now is important to Steve in ways Danny can't fathom and never ever wants to.


End file.
